


Little Sins

by Richter_DL



Category: Dark Heresy, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Richter_DL/pseuds/Richter_DL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the grim, dark future of the 41st Millenium, some cadets in Imperial orphanages feel entitled to bully others just because they can. And some face them down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Sins

"Heretic!" The word rang through the high-ceilinged corridor of section Tertia, seventh floor, at the St Ezra Progenum monastery fortress in Landfall, the largest settlement on recently enlightened Athras. Two young cadets scurried away as the hall guard spoke the dreaded word, standing over the accused. Her face bore a malicious smile as she continued. "I hereby declare you, by the power vested in me by His Holy Schola, a pentient."

Antigone backed away, but a hand in the small of her back pushed her forward again. She staggered and dropped her books and notes, her electroquill spilling black ink on the marble floor. "Why, what did I do now?" she asked, a hint of defiance against this inevitable fate. This was not the first time the three hall guards in corridor F had singled her out for imagined slights, where her dorm unfortunatly was situated. Antigone realised she could not let this go on forever, but she had little idea how to stop it. The aquila adorning the nearby gate to the fortress' main conduit gazed down on her impassively. Would that HE ON TERRA spent a tiny fraction of his infinite attention on my plight, she thought.

The lead of the three, Maeve, smiled cruelly. Two years older and a senior cadet, it was supposed to be her duty to keep everything in order and make sure no unsanctioned words or behavior disgraced the Schola's corridors. Instead, Antigone thought bitterly, they did this.

"Because we like us some bookworms. Forbidden knowledge she seeks, eh? Admit it bookworm!" someone else said behind her back, whose hand kept her from backing away. That had to be Kira. A third stood by her side, surely Scarpa. No escape, Antigone thought, worried.

Kira, Scarpa and Maeve were hall watch of this sector, and they had it out for the young girl with a penchant for reading and philosophy. Brutes, each a head taller than her, and several steps higher in the hierarchy of the Schola. "I'll admit nothing, because there's nothing to admit!" Antigone defiantly said, her voice wavering.

"And your penance shall be to give your hair for his glory", Maeve declared.  
"No!" Antigone defiantly screamed and struggled to get out of Kira's grip. "I did not sin, and you're no confessors anyway!"  
"Tsk, this is the arch-enemy speaking from her. She might need an exorcism." Maeve spoke with a gravity in her voice that sounded a lot like Headmistress  Charlotte Ayca's, only with a malicious undertone, and a mocking, superior tone where the old, scarred Sister Dialogus, for all her sternness and multitude of supportive implants, at least was just.

"No Indeed. Leave her alone, Maeve", a voice beside the group said. Antigone looked up. A girl her age, another junior cadet, but tall as the wardens and well-trained. Millicent, the loner. Millicent Progena. A girl whose past must never been known, so she had been named for the Schola. The year's best in close combat with and without weapons. Antigone had always been frightened off both by whispered stories about the sins of her parents, and her fierce, stern eyes, her quiet demeanor and the viciousness with which she fought in practice, as though every last sparring was a fight for her life.

The three hall guards laughed. "Look, it's ... what's her name ..." Maeve started, raising two fingers to her lips as though thinking.  
"Got none, she's nameless!", Kira suggested.  
"... oh yes, it's the girl who has no name. What brings your foul self to our hallowed halls?"  
"My duty to the Emperor", Millicent said with cold conviction. "What brought you? Your rich parents?"  
Maeve's eyes flared slightly. "You speak out of turn, nameless!" she hissed. "My parents gave their life for the Imperium, they were no whores and scum like yours."  
"You don't know them", Antigone dared to say. "How can you say that if nobody knows them?"  
Maeve slapped the girl. "Shut your face, pentient."  
"What is this? Proceeding your parents' legacy? Terrorise others?" the loner coolly inquired.  
"How dare you, scum!" Maeve shouted.  
The loner grinned narrowly. "I may not know who my parents were, but at least, I give my all to do them honor, them and HIM ON TERRA. You? All you do is behave like you don't know your place, Maeve Cerubian."  
"Shut up!" Maeve hissed.  
"And I know why you are here", Antigone suggested with a cuel little smile, seeing her tormenter vulnerable for the first time. "You aren't of lineage. It's in the records, if you know where to look. A gracious donation to the Schola ..."  
"That's the scourge, for both of you! Twenty lashes!" Maeve shouted and struck at Antigone again, hard.

Her hand was caught in a strong grip before it struck Antigone, who cowered with one arm raised in defence. "You forget yourself, hall watch", Millicent coolly said. "Corporeal punishment is not yours to administer."  
Maeve struck Millicent with her left hand, hard in the face, bursting her lip. The girl stepped back unbalanced, spitting blood, and let go of Maeves hand.

"Really, nameless?" Maeve grinned, and took a basic fighting stance, the Fleur they practised daily. "Girls. With me", she said, and hit Millicent in the stomach. Even though she could have dodged, Millicent just took the punch, wavering, but not falling. Antigone was nonplussed, since the Millicent the Loner she knew would have broken Maeve's wrist, probably twice. Instead she just absorbed the punch, her expression giving away that she felt the punch's pain. Millicent's eyes seemed distant, as though looking at something beyond the girl in front of her. She smiled, and it was not the smile of defiance, it was one of sure victory. Maeve was taken a bit aback. "Don't even know Fleur basics, scum? I heared you were good for a decent fight. Must have been exaggeration. Well, lucky for you, I'm in the mood for free training!"

Millicent didn't dodge the spinning kick either, didn't block, didn't even move save a reflexive raising of her forearms. And this time, she was knocked off her feet and hard against the wall. a wall-high mural of saint-general Sejanus impassively presided over the unequal fight. Antigone cringed as she heared something crack as though a stick had been broken, when Maeve moved in and rammed her knee into the girl's back. She wanted to help, but instead hastily gathered her stuff, finally breaking her hypnotised gaze on Maeve.

"Kira, Scarpa, what's keeping you?" an angry Maeve inquired as she kicked the downed girl on the wall in front of her in the chest. Millicent gasped and spit blood. "I'll teach you, bitch." 

But her friends were not joining. "What is the meaning of this?" a stern voice instead asked. Coarse and strong, it was Abbotess Vivandrine, a teacher specialising in logic and dogma, but who bore many scars gained in the campaign that took Athras.

Maeve thought fast. "Those two attacked me!" she complained, adding a pleading tone to her voice, sounding distressed. Millicent wiped blood from her mouth, smiling as she did. "I restrained her, mother, it's true. Anger had gotten the better of her, and I wanted to help her not make a mistake."  
"Is that so?" Abbotess Vivandrine asked. " Maeve nodded assuringly. "And why did you hit your fellow cadet?"  
"I told you, she attacked me!"  
"I only saw you hit her. And kick her, several times. I also think I heared you insult her. Return to your dorm. I will inform you of your punishments after evening services."  
"But ...!"  
"You forget your station, cadet." The abottess' voice had become a warning hiss. She kept an electroscourge on her at all times and didn't hesistater to use it to make a point.  
Maeve hung her head in defeat, and turned, muttering "Yes, mother."  
"Young lady", the Abbotess demanded. "Your badge."

As the former hall watch walked, the teacher's gaze came to rest on the other two. "I take it you have business to attend to. Attend to it. And make yourselves presentable again. Only blood gained in an honorable battle is permissive of a Schola cadet."

***** 

The water in the empty washing room gurgled, faucets shaped like the necks of craing eagles spitting water from their mouths. Cracked tiling depicted the orders of the Scholam - Commissariat, Sororitas, Adeptus Terra, Munitorium. Faint traces of sweat and filth hung in the air, but Millicent paid them no heed, cleaning herself thoroughly and angrily looking at a bruise forming in her face. "I'll just pass that as an injury due to training", she muttered to herself as she always did when she felt alone. She often was.

A door croaked. The girl from the corridor, Antigone. "Emperor protects", she greeted, in a rather formal manner. "Emperor protects", Millicent replied, foregoing an Aquila in favor of washing blood from under her nose.

"I ... don't think the Famulous was right", Antigone said then. Millicent's cold, grey eyes looked at the girl's image in the mirror framed like the window in a temple, though it was prefabricated, like most of the fortress-monastery. Same age as she was, obviously, but she could easily pass for twelve or even ten.  
"That's dangerous talk", Millicent said. "Anyway, I'll have to run, there's much I have yet to write down unless I'm eager for a reprimand."  
"What are you writing?"  
"I'm to compose a treatise about the works of Alvinus the Latter in respect to the conduit of the soul."  
"Oh, that's easy, he basically says it's about the Emperor's Light and focusing on it in your dying moments. Lots of arcane imagery, you just have to sort through that, but that's the gist. I wrote such a treatise last year, for Advanced Dogmatics."  
"Well, so do I."  
"Uhm ... oh. You ... take it again? Do you want help ...?"  
"I'm not very good at making sense of his convoluted writings", Millicent admitted with a hint of anger, and picked up her tunic, to dress herself for her way back to the dorm. "Thanks, but I don't want to copy."  
"No, I wasn't suggesting ... but I could help you, explain."  
Millicent appraised the girl. "Well, I suppose you could", she conceded.  
Antigone smiled. "You saved me in the corridor. It's the least I can do." She had stepped up to Millicent, looking at the scars and lashes on her back that spoke of an ardent flagellant and the building bruises where she had weathered the attacks of Maeve. "That looks horrible ..." she said.  
"It's nothing. A worthy sacrifice, I think. Those three were a disgrace to HIM ON TERRA."  
Antigone nodded, not knowing what else to do. "You didn't have to."  
Millicent shook her head slowly, giving up on her face, save for wiping away a few last traces of her own blood. "Quite on the contrary. But answer me one thing ... why did you say Mother Vivandrine was wrong?"

"I think", Antigone said, smiling a bit awkwardly but honestly, "that it was a very honorable thing you did."

**Author's Note:**

> First in what might become a series of origin stories of Millicent Progena, my WH40K Roleplay Character. Please don't use any of the characters in this or other of my stories without my approval. Much obliged. Critiques are very welcome.


End file.
